Wednesday, March 31, 2010

A few friends and I wanted to build a pump track style trail, utilizing as many natural features in the forest as we could. As we walked the line we found rocks perfect for step downs and drops and our pumptrack style trail started to ride like a really tight freeride trail, perfect for my Wildcard. Here is the edit from the trail complete with cable cam and dolly shots. Filming and editing done by Taylor Lougran of ArtBarn Film

Canadian based CNC firm Straitline Components Launches the first ever DH QR Stems into the demanding and competitive Gravity Market.

With the new innovated design inspired by the demands of two Canadian Champions Andrew Mitchell -2 time National Champion and current Canadian Junior Champion Kyle Marshall, Straitline Quickie Stems will be seen all over the race circuits in the coming months.

Andrew Mitchell

Kyle Marshall

Designed to be ridden on the infamous West Coast terrain found in British Columbia Canada, the Quickie Stems have already been a huge hit with the locals with pre orders hitting just shy of the double digits.

Monday, March 29, 2010

Keith is flying out from Scotland so if you want to geek out on bike tech talk make sure you grab him. Rob is coming in from Taiwan and Ryan is flying in from Oregon. If you see us we're all approachable so don't hesitate to grab us and ask a question or make a comment - thats why we're there.I can't make it unfortunately as I have a production coming through and have school.

We will have Banshee's Team Geronimo and MCL Racing as well as part of the Canadian team contingent competing at the races.Trident Sports will also be there helping to organize everything and will be managing demo bikes for people to try.

We will be showing off the new Legend MkII from the Taipei show - Rob is dragging it with him.

Its going to be a great time, and we're really excited to meet all the riders and racers. This is really why we do what we do and I so happy that we're part of the Sea Otter Classic again after too long of a break.

Another advantage of longer days: riding dirt jumps in the afternoon and trails in the evening! David, Jeff, Kevin, and I cruised out to Post Office for a fun little ride. Kevin was steezin up a storm with big smooth whips, and Jeff was styling through, throwing some sick 3’s! David and I had a good time messing around with the different lines, trying to jump over each other and cross each other’s lines as close as possible. It ended up being an awesome time, just taking it easy and having fun at the jumps. David had to go to work, so we dropped him off and continued into the mountains where we met up with Cob and Iggy. Dan joined up a little later and we had a cool little session on some fun sections of trail. Cob and Iggy were getting sideways off a nice high-speed triple, killing it as always. Eventually we ran out of light, which nobody complained about as we were all pretty tired. Solid day!

Enjoy!

Oh and earlier in the week, I met up with local photographer, Connor Luther, to help him with a project for his photography class. Actually I don’t really know if “help” is the right word. I just rode and he nailed some sick shots!

Sunday, March 28, 2010

MBUK (Mountain Biking UK) magazine visited the Esher Shore bike park in Surrey, England, UK on Tuesday to shoot an article on Pump Tracks for a forthcoming issue of their print magazine

We had huge fun riding the pump track with Doddy from MBUK and the legend that is Rob Warner!

John rode his AMP, I rode my RAMPANT and our buddy Marius rode his Ticket, Doddy and Warner were riding some "other" brands we won't mention except to say Doddy's bike was very yellow, and Rob Warner's bike a lovely turquoise blue

Doddy rode my Rampant and was somewhat surprised how quick it was on the Pump Track compared to a hardtail; John and I think the rampant is actually quicker due to better tire traction and the ability to pump the bumps and berms harder and use the return action of the suspension to generate speed...!

We are not allowed to release any of the high-res images that Steve Behr (stockfile) shot on the day including lots of RAD images taken from the roof of a nearby building, so shown above is a photoshop tweaked image of everyone riding at once, and shown below is a photoshop tweaked image of me riding my Mythic RAMPANT

The mag will be out pretty soon...more info coming soon!

the PUMP TRACK at Esher Shore won't be open for a while yet...news will be put up on the Banshee / Mythic , Freeborn, Esher Shore and Hampstead Bandit blogs once its open

No one has ridden our jump line in almost a year. When we got back to Taiwan after four months of being in Canada there was so much grass that nothing could be ridden. Every spring someone lights a fire that burns up all the grass. This year it burnt up all the grass and most of our tools. But on the bright side we do not have to fight with the grass anymore.

James has been rebuilding … We took my Wildcard out today and took turns on the bike and camera.

James:

Rob:

I would like to thank my new trainer “Kesuke Miyagi”. His style and influence really show in this last picture. Keep Riding.

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Well, the night has come and gone now, and boy what a night it was! When I first got to the Commodore at 7:30pm I was shocked to see people were already coming in, seeing as the doors were supposed to open at 8pm .Within no time there was standing room only and the party was on. There were lots of drinks being had and the Commodore did an excellent job on catering to our every whim. I hope that we will be able to do more events together in the near future. We decided to start the show a little late. I think somewhere around 9:15 or 9:20. When the movie started a big roar went out and then everyone was captivated by Tam's work. The movie was great. If you like any of Tam's work on the NWD series or Stripped you will be a huge fan of this film. Of course, once the movie ended, the fun part came...the toss out and raffle. There were so many awesome prizes that it seemed like almost half the crowd walked away with something. We had packages from Adidas Eye wear, Race Face, Giro, The Bicycle Cafe, and of course copies of the movie from New Wave Cinema. Cheryl from the Bicycle Cafe came up and helped me out with the raffle, and got the crowd pumped up. We even had a push up contest for the last copy of Brighter. In the end I would say the event was a huge success, and I hope that not to many people had to call in "sick" for work today. Have a good one.

Daylight Savings Time is upon us, and what can I say…it ROCKS! Nothing like getting the chance to ride everyday, regardless of work or school schedules! So it’ll be of no surprise to you that there’ve been seshes at Post Office everyday of the week. It doesn’t get any better than that!

Well almost. It could have been better if our buddy Brad didn’t break his ankle. There’s this cool new transfer off the new wood lip onto the landing to the right. Brian Miller has been killing it, throwing huge 360s and tailwhips over it. Brad wanted to try to ally-oop 3 it, which would be super crazy because he would be turning left off the lip, but have to transfer over to the right. He went for it, transferred over perfectly, but ended up over rotating and over clearing. He landed on his feet, but the way he landed caused his left ankle to break in 3 places. He handled it like it wasn’t a big deal at all, and ended up driving home later that day! He’s going in for surgery on Monday to get it reset, so hopefully it won’t be too long before he’s back in action! Get well soon Brad!

Towards the end of the week we realized that with a new berm and a few rollers here and there, we could have a little pumptrack that would weave through parts of the existing lines. By that evening it was done, and after a classic sundown sesh on the jumps, we turned it over to a big pumptrack session. It ended up being a great (and tiring) time, finding new lines and racing friends. With the warmer weather, the longer days, and events like Sea Otter around the corner, the “off-season” is beginning to transition into the on-season!

Saturday, March 20, 2010

If you ride a Banshee and want to see it posted here on the Banshee Blog send me an email … rob@bansheebikes.com. You can be creative like Aeron and send me a link to a video or do it the old fashion style with pictures and a short write up.

Friday, March 19, 2010

A couple of days ago Jason and I went to the dirt jumps at our local mountain bike park to see how they were running and if we could get anything going of them. With a little bit of grooming to get the jumps running this is what we managed to get.

Unless you have been living under a rock for the past couple of months you have seen pictures of the Banshee Legend MKII. The first time I saw pictures of the Legend MKII I thought it looked pretty much like every other race bike out there. After seeing it in person a month ago I started lusting over the thought of getting one. In the span of a work day my lust turned into love and then heart break.

Today my task was to build the Legend MKII show bike. When I showed up at the factory there was a medium Legend in the Team Red color scheme waiting for me. After raiding Jay’s office and desk I had the parts ready to start building.

Usually after building up a bike, even if it is a friend's or customers I will take it for a little spin to make sure everything is good to go. This is first bike that I did not go for my ceremonial ride ... and that is when my heart was broken.

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